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IMC 2022: Sessions

Session 1720: Languages as Barriers, Languages as Bridges: Intra- and Inter-Lingual Negotiations across Boundaries in the Late Antique and Medieval Mediterranean, III - The City and Its Hinterland

Thursday 7 July 2022, 14.15-15.45

Sponsor:National Science Centre, Poland / Uniwersytet Warszawski / Jacksonville State University, Alabama / University of Sheffield
Organisers:Mirela Ivanova, Faculty of History, University of Oxford
Paweł Nowakowski, Faculty of History, University of Oxford
Moderator/Chair:Mirela Ivanova, Faculty of History, University of Oxford
Paper 1720-aThe Greek-Syriac Linguistic Divide as a Literary Construct: Bridging Barriers and Teaching Piety
(Language: English)
Yuliya Minets, National University, Kyiv / Mohyla Academy (NaUKMA), Kyiv
Index terms: Byzantine Studies, Language and Literature - Greek, Literacy and Orality, Religious Life
Paper 1720-bSyriac, a Monkish Thing?: Revisiting a Passage from John Chrysostom
(Language: English)
Paweł Nowakowski, Faculty of History, University of Oxford
Index terms: Byzantine Studies, Epigraphy, Language and Literature - Greek, Monasticism
Paper 1720-cLanguages in Contact at Hatra: A Textual and Archaeological Perspective
(Language: English)
Ilaria Bucci, Department of History, Classics & Archaeology, Birkbeck, University of London
Index terms: Archaeology - Sites, Epigraphy, Language and Literature - Other, Literacy and Orality
Abstract

This session explores the linguistic divisions between inhabitants of large settlements of urban character (cities, towns, etc), and the population of rural areas in their immediate surroundings. Yuliya Minets focuses on the ways in which the Greek-Syriac linguistic divide was depicted in early Christian literature, in particular on the rhetorical 'usage' of speakers of Syriac as a pedagogical tool to herd the Greek-speaking urban and apparently corrupt audience to piety. Paweł Nowakowski revisits a sermon by John Chrysostom drawing a sharp linguistic division between the people of Antioch and their fellow villagers or ascetics from the wastelands. Ilaria Bucci discusses the linguistic situation at Hatra, to explore how what we know about linguistic diversity (Hatran and Palmyrene Aramaic, Greek, Latin) in the city can help us detect the presence of particular groups and better understand the contexts where language contact occurred.